The first is the Shore Crab, Carcinus maenas, which is a common and widespread species around the whole of the UK coastline.

The second is a super little crab called the Masked Crab, Corystes cassivelaunus, which is a borrowing species and although found around the better part of the UK coastline is usually only found dead as shoreline jetsam.

The first one - if it were not for the very prominent point in the middle, between the eyes, I would say without hesitation, it was the Common Shore Crab, Carcinus maenas. Variation in a species, maybe, but C.maenas only gets my 95% id. rating.

The second - I am sorry Natural History Museum id. team, but your identification of this crab is incorrect. You identify it as the masked crab, Corystes cassivelaunus.

This is most definately the Portunid, Portumnus latipes - a lovely little crab that takes me way back to Ray Ingle in 1980 and a trip out on a trawler off Ireland that I wasn't allowed to go on cos my parents were in Barbados. But that's another story!

"The second - I am sorry Natural History Museum id. team, but your identification of this crab is incorrect. You identify it as the masked crab, Corystes cassivelaunus.

This is most definately the Portunid, Portumnus latipes - a lovely little crab that takes me way back to Ray Ingle in 1980 and a trip out on a trawler off Ireland that I wasn't allowed to go on cos my parents were in Barbados. But that's another story!

This crab is Portumnus latipes."

Thanks Andy P, I see what you mean - less haste clearly required. I have always put carapaces looking generally like this down to Corystes; and clearly therein lies my problem. Having just checked a couple in my own eclectic natural history collection report that they also appear to be Portumnus. Many thanks for your correction and id's on the other crustaceans.